Plant

The world only seen from the office corner.

A plant I've owned for many years has begun to wilt and die. Nothing in its maintenance schedule or in the weather has changed. Yet the leaves have curdled from bold gloss to brittled leather and I find myself in mourning.
It's only now, as it reaches such states, that I've recognised how I have come to hold it in a place in my heart not so distant from the individuals that mattered most to me. A silent friend who did naught but bask in the glory of my office corner, residing over the tasks to which I attended during my working hours.
It's easy to mistake it for elderly, the way its leaves have lapsed towards frailty. I was fairly confident that plants didn't get old, at least not like those of us with fleeting blood and glimpsful breath. Their age was not pronounced by a peak and foisted into slow, spiralling decay, past lower back pain and failing memories, towards some exit door hiding somewhere. They grew up, not old.
There's a grandness about the mystery of the aging of any given plant. No predicted scope drawing a perfect outline for life to colour in. Any size. Any shape. There's only more. Upwards, onwards, balanced precariously upon conditions none have the autonomy to change.
A whole life of waiting and hoping, growing all the while.
As I sit here still.